Control Preferences Scale

The Control Preferences Scale (CPS) is a five-item measure that assesses a patient's preferred role in healthcare decision making, ranging from a passive (physician-directed) to active (patient-directed) or shared approach. Developed by Lois Degner and colleagues in 1997, the CPS measures the degree of control patients wish to exercise in treatment decisions: whether they prefer to leave decisions to the clinician, collaborate with the clinician, or make the final decision themselves. The scale is widely used to understand patient preferences for decision-making involvement and to evaluate the alignment between preferred and actual roles.